COMMENTARY | In the world of politicians, black and white -- for or against -- works better to show definitiveness and decisiveness. Not one Republican politician exhibits this better than Minnesota legislator and presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, who, unlike Mitt Romney, tends to pick a side and sticks with it. Sometimes she does so to her own detriment such as when she attempted to explain on CBS' "Face The Nation" why she was against involvement in Libya but for further involvement in Iraq.
"But I oppose the president putting us into war in Libya," Bachmann said. "One thing that we should have learned in the last 12 years is that once we are involved in a foreign involvement, in a foreign entanglement, it's very difficult to get out. And it's usually at a great price. Secretary Gates is the one who said that America had no vital interest in Libya."
At the same time, it could be argued America had no vital interest in Iraq when it invaded in 2003, just some flimsy contrived "evidence" that the regime of Saddam Hussein was harboring and manufacturing weapons of mass destruction used to justify invading the country. Nearly nine years later, President Barack Obama announced the rest of America's troops would leave Iraq before the year's end. Yet, unlike with Libya, Bachmann voiced opposition to ending America's involvement in that country.
"This decision seems to me that it -- it was more politically based than military based," she said. "If you look at every time we've deposed a dictator, the United States has always left troops behind to be able to enforce the fragile peace. In this case, once we're finished in Iraq, we'll have more troops in Honduras than we'll be leaving behind in Iraq. And, of course, the problem is there will be an Iran waiting in the wings until the United States is gone. And then Iran will exert its dominance and influence in this region. That's not good for anyone. And here the United States has expended forty-four hundred lives over eight hundred billion dollars in toil and blood and treasure. And while we're on the way out, we're being kicked out by the very people that we liberated."
What happened to the argument that once involved in a "foreign entanglement," the U. S. has historically had a difficult time getting disentangled as a reason to not be involved? After 8 1/2 years and the democratically elected government of Iraq's insistence the U.S. leave or sign an agreement that would allow American troops to be subject to the Iraqi legal system, the U.S. chose to leave. End of entanglement.
Shouldn't the argument be that Iraq is a case in point of why America should not have become involved in Libya's civil war troubles?
Still, as conflicts go, the two wars could not be more different. The "entanglement" in Libya lasted eight months, not eight years. There were no American troops on the ground, although U.S. military drones, missile attacks and fighter flyovers were part of the NATO operation. The Libya conflict cost the U.S. $1 billion. The Iraq War has cost more than $800 billion to date, more than it cost to fight World War II.
They were alike in that they saw a ruthless despot deposed.
Politicians like Bachmann who seem intent on always posting themselves as diametrically opposed to a political opponent or issue will sometimes contradict themselves.
In suggesting why the U.S. should not be involved in Libya, Bachmann made a good argument for the discontinuation of involvement for Iraq. She made the point the Obama administration's decision to withdraw troops from Iraq was more politically based than military.
Given her argument of why she opposed getting involved in Libya, it would appear Bachmann, in her fervor to attack headline-making facets of the president's foreign policies, could be hit with much the same accusation.
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